Great works of art can deepen our understanding of the world around us. As we confront the current events shaping this period in history, art can offer solace, clarity, and perspective. Through Art for This Moment, MFA staff, artists, and others share objects from across our collections that carry personal significance and global resonance.
Virgin and Child
Frederick Ilchman
Friday, November 18, 2022
Art needs to be seen. I believe a work of art becomes truly complete when a viewer is part of the equation. Without someone observing the artist’s…
Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors—7th Avenue Style
Megan Bernard
Thursday, October 27, 2022
I didn’t grow up going to art museums. My parents never took me, but that didn’t mean they didn’t bring art into my life. Art was all around me in my…
The Departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from Delfshaven on Their Way to America
Matigan Holloway
Friday, September 16, 2022
When I was in second grade, my class spent the fall preparing for a play: a kid-friendly, historically inaccurate depiction of Christopher Columbus…
HiiiPoWeR: Hues of Revolution
Chenoa Baker
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
“I be off the slave ship building pyramids and writing my own hieroglyphs.” —Kendrick Lamar, “HiiiPoWeR” While working as an advisor on the exhibition…
Tiningo’ si Sirena: A Conversation with Gisela Charfauros McDaniel and Antoinette CHarfauros McDaniel
Marina Tyquiengco
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Håfa Adai —hello! I recently spoke with artist Gisela Charfauros McDaniel and her mother, scholar Antoinette CHarfauros McDaniel, to discuss Gisela’s…
Raven Steals the Moon
Julia Joyce
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Here is how I explain the layout of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to visitors in a hurry: “It’s separated by area of the world.” Except, it is not…
Silhouette Geometrique
Oleksandra Kovalchuk
Monday, May 16, 2022
Over the last few weeks, coming to the MFA has helped me find some peace while an outrageously cruel war goes on in my homeland, Ukraine. Each time I…
Known and Unknown
Benjamin Weiss
Thursday, April 28, 2022
History is slippery. We like to think of the past as being made up of a knowable series of events that time and study have neatly sorted and sifted by…
Virginal (Muselar)
Bobby Giglio
Monday, March 28, 2022
A musical instrument is the anticipation of something. Sinuous strings and thin soundboards, carefully carved air ducts and hollow tubes, membranes…
Portrait of a Man and Woman in an Interior
Christine Evers
Friday, February 25, 2022
“Stories and objects share something, a patina. . . . Perhaps a patina is a process of rubbing back so that the essential is revealed. . . . But it…
Ceramics from the Paul Revere Pottery
Haley Rayburn
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
I get an immediate sense of comfort from the ceramic decorations of Sara Galner. As a member of the Saturday Evening Girls, an early 20th-century…
Morning on the Seine, near Giverny
Jessica Doonan
Monday, December 27, 2021
Starting a new job in a pandemic is not easy. When I began working at the MFA in February 2021, almost all of my interactions with colleagues took…
Doll’s House
Courtney Harris
Monday, November 29, 2021
Have I always loved small things? I’ve asked myself that question many times over the past few years as my obsession with all things miniature has…
Poston Quilt
Olga Khvan
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
As we find ourselves in a recent wave of anti-Asian hate sweeping the nation—mourning the victims of the March 2021 shootings in Atlanta, hearts…
Garden for Boston
Marina Tyquiengco
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
“Garden for Boston” is the first living outdoor exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Since late May, I’ve watched this project—comprised of…